Print
Are liberal members of the mainstream media changing their stance on gun control? Perhaps common sense is finally sinking in, because some journalists who have supported gun control efforts in the past just may be rethinking their positions.
CNN’s Don Lemon’s gun control views have reportedly been evolving since he read a Centers for Disease Control (CDC) report on the topic. The news host sharply criticized Second Amendment supporters during the weeks following the tragic school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. But he recently announced publicly that he is “rethinking” his gun control position.
During an appearance on The Tom Joyner Radio Show, Lemon pondered the logic of gun control policies and noted the recent CDC study which forced him to rethink his stance on gun rights. President Obama instructed the CDC to study gun violence after the Sandy Hook shooting.
“It just might make you rethink your stance, your view, on the issue,” Lemon said. “It did for me. It’s making me rethink it.”
The CDC gun violence report stated that most gun deaths are actually the result of suicide, and not violent crime. It also said:
- Armed Americans are not as likely to be harmed by an attacker.
- There are between 500,000 and 3 million defensive gun uses annually in the United States.
- Mass shootings comprise just a small portion of gun related deaths in America, and such incidents are on the decline.
Another stat which caused Lemon to reconsider his stance on gun control: Most criminals get their guns illegally, making increased laws an illogical remedy to thwart violent crime.
How to hide your guns, and other off grid caches…
Meanwhile, Ed Schultz, an openly liberal commentator on MSNBC, shocked his audience when he, too, announced he was rethinking his stance on gun control laws.
“I guess I’m going to give some audio that might be a little bit tough for liberals,” Schultz said. “But as a gun owner myself, I pose the question to our audience — why should there be restriction on people who are law-abiding citizens that don’t have mental health issues? That are law-abiding citizens? That pay their taxes? That do everything they’re supposed to do? But then every time there’s a mass shooting we’re going to have a conversation about what I can own in this country. This is freedom, isn’t it?
“I’m going to infuriate some of you,” he added, “(and) I don’t mean to, I’m pushing the conversation that, it’s almost as if we don’t dive into the conversation the way we should. And what is at the crux of all of this is freedom.”
The MSNBC host went on to question exactly what the term freedom means, if some “groups out there” want to decrease the types of weapons which can be legally purchased simply because “some crazy guy went in and shot up a workplace.”
Even though Ed Schultz came out for gun rights to a certain degree, he stopped short of fully embracing the traditional mantra of gun owners, saying he disagrees with the notion that “the only thing that can protect you from a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” Schultz stated that if he thought such a theory were true, he would have a concealed carry permit, or at least a firearm which could be concealed and he does not.
The positions by Lemon and Schultz show gun rights activists are making progress in America. Still, the gun control debate is nowhere near over in America. Some states have recently passed or have pending, increasingly stringent guns and ammo laws. As previously reported by Off The Grid News, a popular crowd funding website turned down the independent Lights Out Saga film over the movie’s ties to gun sponsors.
What do you think about members of the mainstream media rethinking their views on gun control?
